


Imperious Wrecks

by fartherfaster



Series: Imperious Wrecks [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Multi, Runaways AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 10:36:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3764971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fartherfaster/pseuds/fartherfaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All the fic from my tumblr askbox prompts. Pairings, ratings, content warnings, and word counts in chapter details. Dig in!<br/>-<br/>If you'd like to submit a prompt, my <a href="http://www.fatherfaster.tumblr.com/ask">askbox</a> is always open.<br/>-<br/>Flash-written, rarely beta-read. The continuations of this series are the much longer pieces that warranted archiving on their own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Political Dinners

Steve & Darcy + ennui

1.4k, canon-typical violence, gen fic

* * *

 

“Hey, good-lookin’.”

Steve turns away from the balcony railing, schooling his expression. “Hey yourself,” he replies. He makes to come inside, out of the February chill, but Darcy joins him first. Her elbow almost touches his. She smells like cinnamon, like those candy-heart martinis she’s been sipping at all night long. 

“Not one for the politics of caping?” she asks, “I thought you were a pretty outspoken guy.”

“Not one for the lying,” he gripes. The corner of his jaw tightens.

“Aw,” says Darcy, her mouth a cynic’s smile, “don’t tell me people used to tell the truth at House White dinners.”

Steve’s mouth twitches. “Okay,” he says, “I won’t.”

She bumps his arm. “Come on, Boy Blue, they’re asking after you and it’s getting awkward.”

He leans a little and bumps her in return. “Hey,” he says, “I wasn’t asleep this time.”

-

It’s only four flights of stairs, but they take the elevator anyway. The light flickers from  _five_  to  _four_  and then blinks out entirely before marking  _three_. The cage shudders and bumps, emergency lights flashing and unable to hold a charge. Darcy lets out a small shriek, and Steve loses his balance, almost toppling into her. He leans heavily against the wall, grasping in his pocket for his phone. Touching the  _home_ button doesn’t activate the screen. 

“Shit,” Steve curses.

“What?” Darcy asks, distracted. He can hear her nail tapping at her comm unit, but there’s no response. The cage of the elevator is pitch black.

“Check your phone,” he says. “We’ve been hit with an EMP, I think.”

“Okay,” says Darcy, her tone calculating. “So, what now?”

“EMP generally means bad guys,” Steve says, tone low. “Where are you?” He stretches a hand out carefully in the direction of her voice, unable to see at all. He bumps gently against her side, and Darcy’s hand closes on his wrist like a vice.

“Ah!” She makes a small noise, “Okay, this is you, right? Please tell me that’s you. I can see fuck-all.”

Steve swallows a rising sound of nervous laughter. The dark is getting to him, too. “Yeah, it’s me. You okay?” He cups her ribs with his palm and gently pulls her in so they’re pressed side to side. “I’ll bust the doors and see if we can’t get some light in here, okay?”

“Fantastic,” Darcy mutters. “Where are the doors?”

“Oh,” says Steve. He flaps his other hand loosely. “I think they’re over there.”

“Are you pointing?” Darcy asks. “In the dark? Where neither of us can see?”

“Oh,” says Steve.

“This box isn’t that big,” she says confidently. “We can’t lose each other.”

“Small miracles,” mumbles Steve. He waves his hand until he finds the wall. “Just walk around the edge until you find the buttons,” he says, “they’re right next to the doors.”

Darcy steps away from him, and a moment later makes a sound of triumph. Steve’s hand has made the course of the railing on the back wall. He takes measured steps towards her. “Find it?”

“Uh- _bffft_ ,” she sputters; Steve has walked straight into her space, and she can’t speak for the tie in her face. She puts her hands on his chest and shoves him back, but Steve’s already retreating, and his shoes catch on the carpet’s deep pile. He goes down like a sack of bricks, and the elevator cage shakes again.

“Fuck!”

“Sorry!”

Darcy takes a deep breath and tries to contain herself. “I found the door,” she says, “now, for the love of God, get some light in here, and don’t squash me again.”

-

Steve lets out a groan as he hauls on the elevator’s inside doors. Once they’ve cleared the breadth of his shoulders, they slide like nothing. The cage stopped between floors; Steve can sense the smooth wall in front of him. He runs his hands carefully over the surface, feeling for the external doors of either floor.

Level with his shoulder is the floor of the fourth level, the curved metal cap over the tile giving way to another pair of doors. The angle is tough going and his fingers ache with the effort, slipping twice before he can catch enough distance to push them apart. The window at the end of the corridor has a spill of moonlight beneath it, enough to leave Steve with a renewed sense of balance and distance. A sliver of that moonlight reflects down the length of the hall, and it bounces inside the elevator cage, giving a faint sheen off the metal surfaces and the silk shine of Darcy’s dress. Her figure cuts dangerous curves in the moonlight, and Steve has to mentally shake himself.

“Okay,” says Steve, rubbing together his sore hands. “Looks like we only made it one floor down. We’ll get out of here and figure out what the hell’s going on.”

“Great,” Darcy says, her voice muffled. Steve turns to look; she’s fished up her skirt, and… Steve’s brain skids. She’s holding a knife.

“Darcy,” Steve threatens. He feels, for moment, like he’s been turned to stone. Darcy’s his _friend_.

“Easy, big guy,” she says. “It’s not for you.” She gathers the fabric of her skirt in one hand and slices the material in a clean line, from mid-thigh to the hem at her calf. She tucks the knife back into the sheath in her garter, and Steve swallows. His heart pounds and stumbles unevenly as the shock bleeds away to confusion.

“What,” says Steve.

“Fucking dinner parties,” Darcy complains. “I can’t bend my knees in this dress.”

Steve stands silent; there’s not enough light for Darcy to catch his blank expression. “I’ll need a boost,” she says impatiently; the gap to the fourth floor is well over her head. “Up and out, soldier.”

“Ah,” says Steve, and then, with more presence, “oh, yeah. Okay. Y’ready?” He steps back from the doors, and Darcy steps towards them.

“Aye, aye. Count of three?”

He can only make out her shape where the moonlight catches on the silk of her dress, but it’s evocative enough that he can find her hips without unwelcome wandering. “No need,” he says, lifting her easily. Darcy pitches forward. “Balanced?” he asks. “You good?”

“Step a little closer,” she asks, “I’ve got no hand holds, and you’re too far from the door.”

Steve shifts to the right, and Darcy cleanly pulls herself up. She rolls away from the gap, giving him room. “Nothin’ goin’ on up here,” she says quietly. “But watch your head.”

Steve springs up on the balls of his feet, and copying Darcy’s actions, braces an elbow behind the elevator door as leverage. It’s a squeeze, but he fits, rolling across the floor. She’s already standing at the corner of the corridor, still as a ghost. Steve trots quietly towards her, unlacing his tie and testing the strength and stretch of the silk. There’s been no noise from the dinner party, but it’s the kind of silence that makes him nervous. Besides that, they’re still three floors away from any acti-

A single gunshot rings in air, echoing up the corridors.

At her shoulder, Steve whispers, “You got another knife?”

“Hang on,” Darcy hisses, putting the first knife and another blade handle-first into his hands. The tie has been folded into his pocket, a last-choice weapon of circumstance. “Where’s your shield?” she demands.

“Home,” he grits. “This was supposed to be a political dinner.”

They move along the hallways and stairwells like shadows. Darcy makes an uncomfortable sound, and Steve glances over his shoulder. She pulls a matte black pistol from her décolletage, and then fiddles with the edge of her dress, pulling it back into shape. “What?” she asks sharply.

“We clearly go to very different political dinners,” he says flatly. Darcy pulls a silencer from the other side of her dress, from under her arm. She twists it into the barrel of the gun. Steve starts for the next hallway, the one that leads to the dining room.

“Hang on, sparky,” she mutters. She fiddles with her bracelets, and after a moment, they light up in eerie blue. She grins at Steve. “Modified Widow’s Bites, fuck yeah.”

“Are you wearing an entire _armoury_ under there?” Steve asks, unable to help himself.

-

“Ready?” Steve asks, lining up to kick the door down.

“On three,” says Darcy.

“No need,” Steve shouts, charging through the doorway.


	2. Kitchen Reno

Darcy/Bucky + incapacitate

850 words, smut, f/m

* * *

 

“Oh, thank god,” Darcy exclaims. She jumps down from the kitchen counter and dashes across the kitchen to where Bucky leans against the apartment door. It locks with a heavy sound, and Bucky sighs, long and low. She stands between his feet and gently touches his face. His eyes are closed, but he smiles softly, and kisses the pads of her fingers when they brush past his lips.

“You okay?” she asks.

“Nothin’ some TLC can’t fix,” he assures her.

“Sleep or shower first?” she asks. It hasn’t been a long mission, but what came over the newscasts was ugly.

Bucky wraps his arms snug around her waist, tipping her balance and reversing their positions against the door. He catches his lower lip between his teeth for a moment before letting it pull loose. The adrenaline hasn’t left him, his whole body still tight with energy unspent. Darcy’s breath catches as he nuzzles and feints around her jaw and throat, almost close enough to catch in a kiss, but not quite.

“See,” he drawls, “I was thinkin’ maybe somethin’ else.”

-

Darcy gets frustrated with his teasing and grabs the back of his neck, pulling him close so she can lave her tongue over the pulse under her lips.

“Tangling up with monster octopus legs didn’t incapacitate you?” She can feel his heat through his body armour, the hard and heavy planes of his body that support her now, worship her on Sunday mornings. She arches and grinds up, searching for friction. Her soft sleep clothes catching his buckles and straps.

Bucky shakes his head, closing his eyes. “Baby,” he says, voice pitched deep as she rubs her thigh against his cock, “ _baby, c’mere.”_ He snags the backs of her thighs in his hands and lifts her up against the door, stepping into the cradle of her hips and rocking their bodies together. Pinning her with his weight, Bucky uses his free hand to sweep Darcy’s hair out of her face. She rocks, slowly, balanced on his thigh and clinging to his shoulders; a blush has already starting to crawl up her neck. He slides his hands along the lengths of her thighs, squeezing her ass and pulling their bodies closer together. Darcy sighs, her head falling back, her throat exposed in invitation.

Bucky ducks down to drag his stubble across her tender skin, a rasp that makes her shiver. “The only legs I care to get tangled in are these ones, gorgeous.”

Darcy skates her hands down his arms, one palm smooth over leather, the other catching gently on the metal plates. She sets her fingers against the heavy zip of his leather vest. “Whatcha waitin’ for?” she asks, leaning in to catch the shell of his ear between her teeth.

“What,” he mumbles, “right here?”

She drags the zip and peels him out of the heaviest piece of his armour. There’s a sweaty, gritty, smokey smell that clings to his skin, and Darcy works until her hands find skin. His abdominals jitter under her touch; he skids his palm up her side to cup her breast.

“You need a bed, old man?” she teases, “Thought you said you weren’t incapacitated."

Bucky stops and looks at her, so intense and slow that it leaves her breathless. He bites his lip again, but it’s not a feint; this is animal hunger in his eyes. Darcy worms in his arms, the anticipation building too high, her pieces strung together too tightly to withstand.

“All right, sweetheart,” he croons. Darcy’s heart thunders. “A little kitchen reno?”

She leans in, catching his smile in her teeth. “Live dangerously,” she suggests, “eat dessert first.”

Bucky snaps his head back, grinning like a cat. “Hang on,” he tells her, and Darcy wraps her arms around his shoulders just before he carries her away from the door. There’s a terrible crash as he sweeps mail and books and the fruit basket off the kitchen table and onto the floor. Darcy muffles her laughter into his neck, clinging to him.

He sets her down gently on the table, pulling her soft clothes away from her body and chasing her shivers with kisses. When she’s naked, Bucky gently pushes her to lie back against the tabletop, knotting their shirts together into a makeshift cushion for her head. Bucky braces one foot on the floor, the other on the seat of a chair; he pulls one of Darcy’s thighs over his shoulder and crooks the other in the bend of his elbow, spreading her body before his mouth like a feast. She laughs and tangles her fingers in his hair as he drops tickling, stubbly kisses over the bone of her hip, the soft inside of her knee.

Her laughter fades very quickly to softer, tender sounds, as Bucky gently parts her labia with two metal fingers and ghosts the tip of his tongue over her sweet, fragrant skin.


	3. The Nothing and the Something

Darcy/Bucky + impalpable

760 words, smut and angst, f/m

*general catch-all tag for Bucky's battered mental health and slow recovery.

* * *

 

Bucky doesn’t always stay the night. 

Or, sometimes he’ll stay, but he won’t stay _in bed_ , rather taking a pillow and a blanket and stretching out on the couch. Sometimes he won’t even go that far, just propping himself up in Darcy’s squashed leather reading chair, alternately watching her sleep and watching the night pass outside the window.

 -

“Hey,” she whispers, waking up as he slips from the bed. Naked, Bucky grabs a robe from the foot of the bed. Moonlight glints off his arm, the shine from his scars muted and twisted. He doesn’t bother to tie the robe closed, but rather just flings himself into the bedside chair.

“Hey back,” he whispers, eyes closed.

Darcy watches his chest rise and fall as he breathes. He blinks open one eye, watching her watch him.

“What,” he asks.

Darcy rolls, stretches, fills up the space in the bed that he’s left behind. She buries her nose where it smells of him, and then says quietly. “Just… tell me,” she says, “if there’s ever anything I can do. If you want to think out loud. If you want quiet. I just…” she blinks at him. “If I can help. Tell me.”

“You are helping, Darce,” he says. Bucky sighs, and then crawls forward onto the bed again. He doesn’t climb under the covers, but he lines up their bodies, pressing his nose into the nape of her neck. “There’s a lot in my head,” he says, “and there’s a lot of nothing, too. I don’t always know what’s real and what was implanted. I mean,” he sighs again, and rolls on to his back. Darcy gives him his distance.

“Daytime, ‘sokay,” he explains to the ceiling. “Real, not real. Person, not person. Person, nothing. Easy as fuckin’ pie.” He’s quiet for a long time after that, even closing his eyes. His breathing evens out once again, and Darcy follows the lines of the shadows his shapes make.

“Nighttime,” he says, eyes still closed, “nighttime’s not so easy. But you help. So I sit in the chair, and I watch you, being a person.”

“You’re a person,” she whispers. “You’re always a person.”

“People shouldn’t have memories of the terrible things I’ve done. People shouldn’t have memories of not existing inside their own skin.”

They’re both quiet for a long time. Eventually, Darcy says, “People heal. That’s the most human part about us, I think. We get hurt, and we get better.”

“Y’think so?”

“Sure,” she says, rolling a little closer.

He curls into her side, seeking out heat. His fingers, flesh and metal, have chilled in the air. “Ugh,” she grumps, “get under the covers, you’re cold.”

They twist and bump around one another; Darcy gives him a gentle shove until his cheek is cushioned on her chest, her legs bent and thrown over his. Neither of them sleep, thinking too much; their hands occasionally wander and tease but it’s all so soft, so gentle that when his fingers dip between her legs and her orgasm rolls out of thin air she’s startled to breathlessness. Bucky presses kisses against her breasts, trails trembling fingers along her ribs.

“Okay, baby?” he asks, “Was that good?” He still has two fingers inside her, curling and uncurling, moving in rhythm as her muscles clench and relax.

“Mhmm,” Darcy moans. She holds him still by his wrist and turns, throwing one leg over his hip. “Please,” she says, rocking on his palm, “I want more. Want you.” 

Bucky pulls his fingers out gently, first sucking the flavour from them and then, so softly, tracing Darcy’s lips with them. She opens her mouth and Bucky drags the pad of his index finger over the sharp edge of her teeth, presses down tenderly on the heat of her tongue. When he pushes into her, she bites at his fingers, claws at his sides, cat-like and sinuous as she stretches around him. The rhythm is slow, the friction is as brutal as it is glorious; they’re both streaming sweat and shaking when they come, the night ceding to the first pink streaks of day.

-

Bucky dozes in her arms and Darcy thinks about this intangible time of day, the impalpable nature of personhood. There is light in the sky but no sun; Bucky is inside his skin now, but once upon a time, he wasn’t. Darcy’s mind loops and catches on the problem over and over, how to tell the difference between the nothing and the nothing that is something. 


	4. Bilgesnipes

Jane/Thor + illusion

710 words, canon-typical violence and injury, f/m

* * *

 

“I’m seeing things,” Jane says with certainly. Thor picks her up carefully from the floor, gathers her in his arms, and then runs to the safe room.

“You are not,” he says, equally sure. “There is a bilgesnipe in your lab.”

“No,” Jane corrects him, “I mean yes, but no. There’s not two of you, right?”

“There is only one Thor, son of Odin,” says Thor, son of Odin, voice very grave, “but there _are now two bilgesnipes in your lab, Jane!”_

“Oh,” says Jane, “okay.” 

“Jane!”

“Yes?” She’s looking just past his face, in the near distance over his left shoulder. Thor decides she’s talking to his double.

“Tell me how to close the experiment down.”

Jane yawns. One of the bilgesnipes makes a terrible roar, and it startles her. “Oh my god!” she shouts. “Thor! What’s in the lab?” Her eyeline wavers, her vision concussed.

“They’re bilgesnipes,” he says in her ear. “We are in your lab, the reinforced one you share with Dr. Banner. The animals will not escape, but you must tell me how to close the portal.”

“The portal?” Jane asks, “It worked?”

Thor sighs. “Yes, my love. Now tell me how to close it.”

Jane thinks for a moment, biting her lip. “Don’t worry about data compression,” she says, “just hit the emergency shutdown. Jarvis’ll know how to recreate the sequence.” She yawns again.

“You must not sleep,” he tells her firmly. “You were struck by an antler as the first one came through.”

“The first what?” Jane asks, rubbing the purpling bump on her head.

Thor sighs. His cloak appeared when he summoned his armour; he mantles it now around Jane’s shoulders. “You must stay here, Jane, please.”

She blinks at him owlishly. “The last time you said that, you got arrested by a secret government agency.”

-

There are three monsters in the lab before Thor can slam his fist on the shutdown. None of the three are strong enough to break through the Hulk-resistant lab space, but Jarvis pipes in the concerned voices of his allies as he fights.

 _“Mother of God, what are those things!”_ Stark’s voice is particularly panicked.

Thor swings his hammer down on the blunt, dumb forehead of one creature, and it collapses with a great, gusting sigh.  _“They are bilgesnipe!”_ Thor roars with disgust.

-

Thor stands in the middle of the destruction, energy humming under his skin. Banner and Stark are trying to make headway from Jane’s notes, but she’d been in the lab for an endless week with some breakthrough. Thor can only imagine the tangle her notes must be in - her mind is phenomenal, but unique. The key to make sense of what she’s proven is likely still inside her sore, jumbled mind. Steven, his most forthright of allies, has an arm around Jane’s shoulder, holding his cloak around her. They’re standing beside one animal and poking it tentatively. Thor approaches.

“It won’t wake up, will it?” Steven asks, all boyish nerves. Thor shakes his head.

“It’s like,” Jane says, “a woolly mammoth. And a rhino. And a moose. With crocodile scales.” She pauses, laying her palm against the rough hide. Then, with certainty she says, “I’m not a biologist.” Her concentration slips, and she gently taps a rhythm out on her fingers.

“Will she be all right?” he asks, over Jane’s head.

“Oh, yeah,” says Steven, very quietly, as if to keep Jane from hearing. “We’ll keep her awake for a while, get these guys,” he jerks a thumb at the unconscious beasts, “outta here, and then she’ll get a quick scan to make sure everything’s okay. Concussions are no fun, but they’re only rarely really dangerous.”

-

“Ow,” says Jane, immediately followed by, “I’m seeing things. There’s two of you.”

Thor sits at her bedside and takes her hand. “Your portal worked,” says Thor proudly. “And you passed the rite of confronting a bilgesnipe.”

Jane blinks. “And that’s why I’m seeing double?”

“I suppose. Am I twice as handsome?”

Jane groans. “Get out,” she grumps, “and get me some tylenol, too.”

“Of course, my love.”


	5. Avengers Ltd.

Darcy & Bucky + limitless

400 words, canon-typical violence, gen fic

* * *

 

“Again?”

“What?” she hisses, “Do I have a limited favour budget? I’m contractually obligated to one daring rescue per Avenger?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call this a daring rescue,” Barnes gripes back. “Now be quiet.”

“This is so not my fault,” she whispers.

“I do realise that, Darce,” he replies, “but please, shut up, I’m trying to get you out of here in one piece.”

“Uh-huh,” mutters Darcy, pressing close against his body and rifling through his pockets.

“Hey!”

She nicks a knife and a sidearm, and flashes him a cocky smile. “Clear the way, I’m all for it,” she says, “But there’s still a hundred civilians in here. We’ll get out of this hellhole, and then you take care of bad guys, and I’ll take care of people.”

Barnes makes a face, but they line up against the door frame, shoulders parallel. Their comm units are still unresponsive, static fizzing in their ears.

“Who bombs a museum opening?” Darcy asks herself.

Barnes cuts her a dark look. “Nazis,” he answers drily.

-

She catches up to him in the rubble, the last civilians evacuated. Stark blasts above them in the suit, the repulsors whining as they burn hot trails through the air. They lean, back to back, and Darcy catches her breath. Barnes twirls the knife between his fingers, testing grips. She steals another cartridge from one of his heavy utility pockets.

“Good thing about knives,” she concedes, “you don’t run out of times you can use them.”

Barnes makes a face, and then in a smooth arc, throws the knife in a deadly line straight into the forehead of an enemy operative. They don’t bleed, but instead start sparking, the wig catching the embers emitted from the sliced wiring.

“ _Fuckin’ LMDs_ ,” Bucky roars into the patched comms. “Iron Man, don’t hold back, the reinforcements aren’t human!”

Darcy makes a face. “Until the knife gets up and runs away from you.”

“All right, smart ass,” Barnes grouses. “What’s next?”

“Everyone who needs to be out is out,” Darcy reports. “If they’re all LMDs, we can blow this place to bits. Or, hey,” she taps at her comm piece, “can somebody get us an EMP, and give Stark a place to land?”

Maria Hill’s voice cuts through the static. “Effective radius?” she asks.

Darcy looks to Barnes. “Five hundred feet should do us.”

“Incoming,” says Hill.

-

Darcy throws herself into the deep cushions of the couch in Jane’s lab. “I’m just saying,” she argues, “rather than calling themselves an initiative, they should maybe tack on the word “limited.” ‘Cause that keeps happening.”

“Mhm-hmm,” says Jane, peering at a data cluster.


	6. Windfall

Darcy/Steve + hurricane

1k, established relationship, team breakfast, gen fic.

* * *

 

The television in Steve’s apartment runs on low sound, casting blue and yellow shadows over the two of them, curled together in their night clothes.

“So, what,” asks Darcy. “Are we just gonna hunker down?”

Steve shrugs, the corners of his mouth pulling down in an exaggerated frown. “S’what we did when I was a kid,” says Steve. “After the Potomac Hurricane in... what? I was a teenager. ‘36? ‘37? Whatever; after that one, when the forecasts came, you’d just hunker down and pray like hell.”

“Oh,” she says quietly. “I’m from Albuquerque. Hurricanes are new for me.”

Steve doesn’t say anything for a moment, thinking about the storm in ’38, how the headlines stirred terror from _THE NEW ENGLAND EXPRESS_ , when praying hadn’t helped them at all. Almost 700 dead across the Eastern Seaboard, thousands and thousands left homeless in flooded streets. “We’ll talk to Pepper,” he tells her instead. “We’ll see if we can’t help out some shelters, maybe rally some donations for the food bank.”

“You and me?” she asks, picking her head up from her recline against his shoulder, “or the whole gang?”

Steve tilts his head back and forth, thinking. He taps the mute button on the remote control, and the Weather Network goes quiet. “If everyone gets involved, it’ll be a circus for the press,” he warns her, “but I’d still really like it if you were with me.”

Darcy thinks for a moment, and nods. “Text Sam,” she tells him, reaching into a pocket for her own phone. “And the Hawkeyes, see if they’re down to help. I’ll email Pep now, okay?”

Steve presses a kiss to her temple before standing up to hunt down his phone.

-

Pepper invites them up to team breakfast in the open lounge on the penthouse floor. Colonel Rhodes and the Hawkeyes are already there. Lieutenant Hill and the Widow are the next ones out of the elevator, waving as Darcy metes out sugar and cream for Steve’s coffee and hers. Flat boxes of cronuts and danishes are passed back and forth, and Kate and Clint make a show out of how far away they can toss grapes and melon balls into each other’s mouths. Thor herds Jane, and Drs. Banner, Ross, Morse, and Simmons out into the open room – the latter two are grounded from the Bus, still recovering from bumps and bruises, and taking advantages of brains to pick. His encompassing handwaving works on most of them, but Morse is head-and-shoulders taller than the rest of her company, and she just cuts Thor a challenging look. He shrugs, and then walks towards Steve.

Steve rises to his feet, and they engage in a great deal of back-slapping and shoulder shaking in greeting. Sam and Fury and Barnes are the last to arrive, but they’re loaded down with carafes of hot chocolate, so nobody minds. Everyone, soon enough, has a plate stacked high with breakfast delights, and Pepper raises her voice over the sounds of mealtime.

“Everyone’s aware of the storm due to land on Friday,” she says, met with a round of small nods and grim faces, “and Steve and Darcy suggested that there may be some ways the Avengers can help, before, after, and maybe even during.

“Preparedness is a big thing,” she explains, “and education in preventative measures goes a long way. Steve,” she says, and beside Darcy, he looks up to Pepper with an earnest expression, “I was thinking we’d get you on the Weather Network, on Thursday. Safety measures, that sort of thing.”

Steve and Darcy exchange looks. “Sure,” says Steve.

Pepper nods. Kate waggles her fingers to catch her attention.

“We’re due on Sesame Street on Wednesday, anyway,” she says, and Simmons, Morse, Ross - and to Darcy’s surprises, even Hill – all make soft sounds of approval, “I’m assuming we’ll have a different script by then, given the circumstances?”

Pepper nods again, and then says “Jarvis, get in touch with the producers.” The system makes a small _ping_ noise in affirmation.

“Show of hands,” she asks, “since it’s September, and school’s in, who’s willing to talk at elementary school; safety, staying calm, maybe ten minutes of questions and some class pictures?” Fingers wave universally around the ring of couches and chairs.

“Great,” says Pepper. “SI, as of this morning, has also announced a meet-and-match competition with several other major players in the city, to donate funds and supplies to shelters and hospitals across the state. Tony,” she touches Stark’s knee, and he puts down his coffee.

“Right on,” he says, “everybody knows the Tower runs on reactor tech,” and everyone nods, with the odd _hmm_ of agreement, “but for the last year we’ve been perfecting system-load variants and self-contained generating units,” he waves his hand close to his chest. “Tricky, because we have to keep eyes on how and who is using it; but at the beginning of the summer we started switchovers. Bruce and me’ll be running in fast-forward this week,” he says, “but by Thursday afternoon, every major hospital should be on reactors, and therefore off the city grid.”

A wave of appreciation moves through the room. Thor and Kate, on either side of Dr. Banner, clap his shoulders with broad smiles on their faces. Pepper and Tony look at one another with soft affection.

“So,” Pepper continues, “we’ll also be shoving our shoulders into donation efforts by the Red Cross and the Y,” she says. “Given the tides, and the projected landfall, we’re looking at something at least as nasty as Sandy,” she says. “The Avengers Initiative exists to protect people. We’ve got four days to do what we do best.”


	7. Betokened Nervousness

Antoine Triplett/Skye + breathe again

456 words, established relationship (sort of*), gen fic

* * *

 

 

The heat leaves him restless in the night, the scratchy motel sheets bunched down at his waist. Skye, her back to him, is out like a light. He finds New Orleans swampish, but Skye had said nothing could compare to the city heatwaves of her childhood when the buildings and the blacktop turned the stagnant air around the orphanage to steam. Tomorrow’s plans sit heavily on Antoine, and coupled with the humid air that scarcely moves as he breathes, he feels like climbing out of his own skin just to cool down. Skye shivers when he slips out of the bed, but nothing else around her moves, so he counts his blessings and tiptoes out to the room’s tiny private patio.

The breeze is just high enough to sound like whispers in the roadside rushes and it’s a thousand times better than sweating the night out in the bed inside. He knows he can’t stay out all night - that really, with the people they’re running from, he shouldn’t be out at all - but his mind is too unsettled by all the things he’s learned in their days on the road. Antoine closes his eyes and focuses on breathing, counting the far-apart far-away roaring of bigrigs on the highway, not a quarter-mile through the trees and the marsh. 

“Hey you.”

Antoine smiles, his eyes still closed. He holds his arm out to his side, and Skye moves lightly until she’s leaning against his open shoulder. He wraps his hand around the ridge of her hip, his smallest finger curling under her shirt. The breeze catches her hair and he feels it trail through the air behind his neck. 

“Couldn’t sleep?” she asks.

Antoine drums his fingers against her side. “Just needed a breather, is all.”

“Yeah.” She rubs her palm across his bare shoulder, her voice so distracted Antoine can tell she’s already forgotten she’s doing it. “It gets that way sometimes. And then it gets weirder.”

“You’re pretty weird,” he teases.

“Say the guy who won’t drink Coke.”

“Hey,” he pokes her, “there’s no need to get nasty.”

“I’ll give you -” Skye stops herself short before choking on a laugh. “Nevermind. I didn’t say that.”

Antoine is trying very hard to keep a straight face. “Mhm-hmm.”

She swats his shoulder, stepping out of his embrace. “I’m going back to bed,” she announces. “You just,” Skye flops her hand in his general direction, “keep breathing.”

“Aw, girl,” he says, “it’s not that weird yet.”

Skye rolls her eyes in disbelief and she slides the screen door closed without a further response.

Antoine takes a deep breath and listens to the unfamiliar birds shifting and singing in the dark.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *this will actually be a connecting scene in the Trip/Skye Runaways AU that will be another [Imperious Wrecks installment](http://archiveofourown.org/series/244660\)).
> 
> Title from Sun Tzu's The Art of War, article 32 of section ix:  
> "If birds gather on any spot, it is unoccupied. Clamour by night betokens nervousness."


End file.
